Wolfgang Posch

5 reasons why you should go nicht tobogganing on your 30th birthday

The toboggan craziness in Rohrmoos I was reading the last chapter of a novel written by Hunter S. Thomson, when I got a message from a friend who I had not heard from in ages. He was inviting me to his 30th birthday. The setting for these festivities was to be the Styrian Rohrmoos and the chosen activity of the birthday boy was to be night tobogganing on a seven kilometre long floodlit run. Well then, vamos a la pista!

1. Jamaica has a bobsleigh team

You are a child of the 90’s, here you were in your heydays: kindergarten, primary school, and secondary school – in a word, living a carefree life. You saw many different sporting trends come and go, such as roller skating, skate boarding and ever since Cool Runnings, also the winter sport of Bobsleighing. So it is high time, to relive these golden times and to try out the Austrian equivalent of a bobsleigh: the toboggan.

2. Show your sporty side

We are in agreement. Even the golden days of your sporting capabilities are long gone. You are not alone in this. Even your friends are secretly complaining about back and hip problems to their partners (and meanwhile to their husbands and wives). But luckily, in company you are still as energetic as ever before. Reason enough for you to decide to go tobogganing. And at least for this sport, you can sit down and it still counts as a sport.

3. Don’t mess with the Rohrmoos liftees

Presumably, all your teenage dreams have shattered like glass, and you did not become either a rock or film star and you also find your current job highly irritating. There are neither risks nor reckless dares and the youthful challenges have been replaced by monotonous office work and boring evenings in front of the television. The liftees will tell you, that at 23:30 the floodlights will be switched off. Reason enough for you to show that you have balls and then merely struggle for survival on the romantic moonlit run down without a head torch, as you would in your 20’s!

4. Your Ski amadé winter season pass

You are old and your friends are old. The only advantage of this is that you can all afford a season pass. Up until now, you have probably only used it to go skiing and snowboarding. Therefore it is high time to recognise tobogganing as a sport, which has been in the Olympics since 1964 and really let loose.

5. The Hochwurzenalm

Up until now you have probably been out boozing when you are down in the valley, either in a Tenne bar or umbrella bar. The Hochwurzenalm is open until 23:30, the same time when the floodlights are switched off, but that doesn’t matter. This mountain hut is quaint and serves the best spare ribs in town, as well as on the mountain. You can enjoy the ambiance and the privilege of it being your birthday with a friend of yours strumming away on their guitar. You pay a round of pine schnapps with honey and now feel suitably merry enough for the long dark run down and the next ten years. Keep on rocking and all the best!

Wolfgang Posch

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